


Lessons of His Evangelism

by Vibora



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Angst, Bad Humor, Dead People, Death, Gen, How Do I Tag, I Tried, Tags May Change, Worms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25642621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vibora/pseuds/Vibora
Summary: After an arduous escape from Coldharbour , Mannimarco finds himself tattered and beaten, just strong enough to find a place to hide from those who would cheer for his ultimate demise. As he slowly recovers himself in the dark, he has plenty of time to remember those who wronged him and the bitter lessons he owe to teach them once he rises again.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Lessons of His Evangelism

**Author's Note:**

> _Just a short thing I wrote because I was bored, maybe a little drunk, and thinking about how much I like a certain worm boy and also writing gross stuff._
> 
> _Happens between ESO and that big war thing he had with Galerion. This presumes the Vestige didn’t free him, and also I didn’t even play ESO, I just like worms._
> 
> _I usually can’t write summaries, but this time I have the feeling it sounds more exciting that what I really wrote. Sorry, I guess I’ll add more later on? Probably. I guess. Someday…_

He woke up in the dry, cold gut of a nameless cave forgotten between the mountains of some desolated corner of Tamriel. In his feverish mind he gazed at the thick darkness before his eyes and wondered if he was dead. For some reason he couldn’t quiet point out yet _this assumption made him want to laugh_ but there wasn’t any air in his lungs, so the laughter died in his chest, creating only a gasping shiver that ran trough his body. As the shivering convulsion shook him, he took notice of a strange numbness that muffled his senses. This realization grounded him enough so that the sequence of events that brought him to this place started to trickle back to his mind. They came to him slowly, all chopped and jumbled over, feeling less like records of his life and more like memories of a dream he had long ago. Still, as he slowly pieced the events in a coherent timeline it all started to make sense.

He was Mannimarco, immortal lich and King of Worms, who after barely escaping the vicious maw of Molag Bal, was forced to burrow himself in the dirt like a wounded rat fleeing from a predator. Somewhere in his cloudy mind he knew he should feel shame, but right now his body and mind were still drenched with the memory of something else, something sharper. Hate.

This hate was what kept his eyes bright and his self whole even under the most extravagant tortures that came form the boundless cruelty of the Prince of Pain; it kept him warm in the endless, hopeless nights of Coldharbour; it shone his path out of that miserable place and it animated his body during the strenuous journey out. Even now, laying tattered and broken amidst rocks and dust, this hate still burned in his core, keeping him centered. But as he finally found himself out of reach of the snapping jaws and tearing claws of the Daedric Prince’s minions, he felt his hate flicker as his mind and body slowly sank onto a mellow empty feeling. 

He fought against the morose tide washing over his mind, trying to stay conscious for enough time to take on his current condition. He tried to move, but again felt the numbness taking hold of his body. He feared that while he desperately stumbled into the deepest chambers of the cave, he had somehow lost most of his body on the way there. While lichedom allowed him the luxury of keep living on even without most of his physical body, getting himself to a point where he could start to plan to retake his lost power would be a much bigger challenge without arms and legs to help him crawl out of the hole he had dug himself into. As dread started to creep into his mind that empty feeling slowly raised, threatening to disperse his hard earned focus.

In an attempt to regain control of his thoughts, he tried to inhaled air into his empty lungs _ an old habit of his living self he still hadn’t quiet left behind. The endeavor only filled his mouth with dust and made him convulse in more trembling fits, but that wasn’t a wholly bad result. At the end of the convulsion he could conclude he definitely still had a mouth, something of his nose, a thorax to pull air in and enough lung to get filled with debris. Not only that but this time he noticed a crunching sound he assumed to be that of shuffling rocks and dust, moving and cracking under his weight, so he could also count with a functioning auditory system and enough of a body to stir the ground around him. It wasn’t much, but at least the worst case scenario was already out of the picture.

Next he tried opening his eyes and look at his surrounding, but in the solid darkness of the cave he couldn’t quiet tell if his eyes were open or closed, or even if he still had his eyelids at all. At least he could distinguish the thick blackness of the absence of light from the nothing caused by the absence of eyes, as he had experience both while in the clutches of the God of Schemes. Lead by this thought, he wondered if the numbness in his body was an effect of the fraying of his nerves by the endless torments he suffered in Coldharbour. More than once he grasped reason in midst of the foggy drunkenness of unending orgies of pain, only to wonder how his body _even in undeath_ could contain such monumental amounts of aguish. Truly only a god could concoct tortures that would puzzle even him, with his extended knowledge of the potential of pain in every corner of man and mer.

As his mind wandered back into those dark halls, the hate in his chest burned renewed, bright and hot. It warmed his dead bones and brought focus to his mind. But the memory of the perpetual no-time of tortures he endured in the realms of Molag Bal wasn’t what fuelled that flame like dried wood would to a fire. No, it was the shame and humiliation that simmered in his dried guts. The disgrace of being so close to his hard earned goal, only to have it tore off his hands, a life of effort and planning crumbling as easily as a sandcastle, leaving only dust and his powerless, captive body in the hands of a hating god. To be toyed and abused with child-like glee for a time unnumbered only truly hurt him when he remembered how low he had sunk, from a soon-to-be god to the amusement of a miscreated god-child.

He could have quietly crawled into the soothing embrace of dementia, loosing his sense of self in the merry halls of Sheogorath, but his pride would not allow him.

_“If only you weren’t so found your little self, I would be forced to be gentle”_

Mocked the God of Rape in between his loathsome laughter.

_“But gladly your swollen pride allows me to shower you with my unrestrained glory”_

He cackled and gloated in a wild orchestra of rage.

But Mannimarco didn’t let go. He only listened and remembered, taking in every sore, every humiliation and branding it into his memory. Carefully hoarding the worst of them, like a miserly merchant gathering the loveliest gems. They kept him sane. They held him together, then and now, in that dry, cold hole were he didn’t even know if he kept his whole body with him.

He replayed those memories in his mind, together with the faces of the others who pushed him into this miserable place. Galerion. The Vestige. The Five Companions... One by one, he thoroughly replayed those bitter recollections in his mind, like a boy holding marbles onto the sunlight. They kept him warm. They brightened his mind.

Sheltered in the warm fire of his hate, he could calm his spirit. Troubling his mind with future possibilities wouldn’t help his recovery. Now he needed to rest and gather his powers until he reached a more manageable state.

Still too numb to properly move, Mannimarco tried to lull what was left of himself, letting his tattered remains rest in perfect stillness while his now focused mind gathered the remains of his magic energy the best he could. I would take time, but he could use the vestigial magic energy of his surrounding to slowly heal his dead body to a certain extend. It would require he entered and estate of hibernation where only the most basic faculties of his mind would still work in order to preserve as much energy as possible, but the chances of a meddling soul entering that cove lost in the off ends of nowhere was small enough to give him the semblance of peace.

Now he would rest and he would recover, while slowly simmering his hate into the thick nectar that kept him going. It filled him with the sureness that he would come back, stronger and more ruthless than ever, even if only to enact the same pain tenfold into every single one of them.


End file.
